Sites of Interest

My new novel is out today–2/22! I hope you will check out this twisty thriller now available in either print or ebook!

She’d made a career out of studying light, but now she’s entered a seductive, dangerous world of shadow and lies . . .

Anna Solas, poor artist working two jobs, is swept away by Evan Halifax, his charm and his good looks, and marries too quickly for her family’s comfort.
Evan takes Anna to his stunning lakeside mansion, the North Twin on the Les Jumeaux estate, where she discovers he lived with his first wife Elizabeth until her disappearance and presumed death. He says they can live anywhere Anna wants to, but his explanations unravel bit by bit.
Anna is increasingly uneasy, wondering what really went on in the decadent home theatre, who is watching her from the South Twin—the matching home on Lake Tahoe’s shore, and the identity of the nightmare woman who appears to her at night, whispering a message she dreads hearing.
She becomes determined to uncover the truth behind Elizabeth’s life in order to save her own sanity.

I have a new novel coming out on 2/22/19 in print and ebook. It’s a mystery, this book, not only in content, but a little bit in genre as well. I have a hard time categorizing it neatly to readers (and in my own head as well). Sometimes I call it a romance, but certainly a dark one, and not one with some of the normal “givens” of a romance. It’s a twisty mystery that will hopefully offer some shivers and thrills, as well as some romantic feels.

Here’s a bit about it:

She’d made a career out of studying light, but now she’s entered a seductive, dangerous world of shadow and lies . . .

Anna Solas, poor artist working two jobs, is swept away by Evan Halifax, his charm and his good looks, and marries too quickly for her family’s comfort.
Evan takes Anna to his stunning lakeside mansion, the North Twin on the Les Jumeaux estate, where she discovers he lived with his first wife Elizabeth until her disappearance and presumed death. He says they can live anywhere Anna wants to, but his explanations unravel bit by bit.
Anna is increasingly uneasy, wondering what really went on in the decadent home theatre, who is watching her from the South Twin—the matching home on Lake Tahoe’s shore, and the identity of the nightmare woman who appears to her at night, whispering a message she dreads hearing.
She becomes determined to uncover the truth behind Elizabeth’s life in order to save her own sanity.

I love the cover, done by long-time friend and wonderful artist, Fiona at FionaJaydeMedia.com because it’s so beautiful, and yet mysterious. It creates this big question mark in your head as to what is happening. It’s breathtakingly lovely, but there’s a hint of alarm or danger: very much like this book!

Don’t miss out on this one! It’s available now at most outlets in ebook, and will be available for order soon in print!

I’m so excited about my upcoming venture, a sexy, fun, serial romance called Wild, Hungry Hearts. It’s a brand new story, being published exclusively on the innovative Radish Fiction app! It’s the first in a series called WILD HEARTS.

WILD, HUNGRY HEARTS releases today, 3/27, on Radish Fiction! 7 episodes are live now, and new episodes will appear every Thursday, Saturday and Tuesday. Download the Radish Fiction app now to read the first 3 episodes for FREE! Then, purchase “coins” to unlock more episodes and keep reading immediately, or wait 7 days for a new episode to become free. Ready to get started? Just click here!

Curious about Esme and Jude’s story? Here’s a sneak peek:

Friends to Lovers . . . to Forever?

Esme. Beautiful, risk-on-a-stick. Esme.

It struck him in some distant part of his brain as he watched her dance that something had changed. That was why he wasn’t having his usual withdrawal response from animal lust when it came to her. Then it hit him, what was different. It was the way Esme had looked earlier when he’d told her part of him still couldn’t accept that his parents were gone. Her big, shining eyes had sliced right through his defenses against her. It was still Esme, of course. But her grief over her dad’s loss had opened her up to him, somehow. Revealed her in a new light.
He’d looked into her in that moment, and seen himself. Seen both of them. And something had tightened inside him.

He stood up and began to walk slowly around the coffee table, never taking his gaze off her. She followed him with her stare and her pulsing body, turning on the table as he circled it. He read a kind of focused, burning anticipation on her face. He’d seen that expression before, while she’d readied herself to make an especially hard jump on her skate or snowboard, or the time she’d accepted a dare from one of their idiot teenage friends to do a double somersault into Tahoe off a rock cliff. Jude had forbidden her to do it—there was some boulders at the lake bottom, and he couldn’t be sure how deep the water was—but Esme rarely backed down from a dare.

Even when she knew it was bad for her.

He lunged, snagging the remote control and muting the volume. The sudden silence and the sound of the remote clacking down on the dresser rang in his hears. Esme went completely still. Slowly, he walked toward her. He came to a halt on the far side of the table, facing her. He reached out, cradling her curving, compact hips. A thrill passed through him at the sensation of her tight, vibrant body in his hands. It was likely his imagination, but he felt heat emanating from her core.

She was going to scorch him.

“Who’s the guy trying to call you?” Jude asked gruffly.

All traces of amusement had vanished from her face. He realized he’d sounded serious. Demanding, even.

“He’s nobody,” she whispered. “He doesn’t mean anything.”

“And you were thinking I’d be a good substitute for this guy that doesn’t mean anything, is that it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scolded, but he heard the slight tremor in her voice. “You’re . . . you. Of course you mean something.”

She took a step toward him. He stared up at her. Sexy-as-hell, golden brown hair with blonde highlights tumbled across her breasts and fell short of her waist by just an inch or two. A light sheen of perspiration shone on her throat. That blazing quality had returned to her finely wrought features. He felt something release inside him, some old, carefully tended lock snapping open.

He leaned forward and pressed his nose and lips against the crotch of her pants.

A convulsion of lust shook him when he inhaled. Leather and sweetness and sex. Esme. He felt her fingers in his hair, heard her choking sound. Years of suppressed desire rushed through him like a torrent through a shattered dam. For a second, his vision blurred and darkened.

Get started on Jude and Esme’s passionate, friends-to-lovers romance at Radish Fiction now!

Have you ever wanted to attend an author signing, but didn’t because it was too far away, you were too busy . . . or maybe you didn’t want to get out of your comfy clothes and make an appearance? Well I have the answer for you. Tonight, I’ll be doing a podcast interview at 6 CST. And the cool thing is, I’ll be signing print books of Behind the Curtain upon request, and the Abraham Lincoln Book Store in Chicago will send them out. Cool, huh? You don’t have to get a book, however, to watch my interview with host and author, Sonali Dev. We’ll dish about romance and Behind the Curtain, and you can send in questions here. Whether you just watch the interview, ask a question or request a signed book, I do hope you’ll stop by–from the comfort of your couch and your own home!

I think it’s the most romantic book I’ve ever written, and it’s coming on 5/2. Here is a brand new excerpt from Behind the Curtain!

Excerpt #2, Behind the Curtain

The soothing sound of trickling water intermingled with the sweet notes of her singing. His gait quickened, his muscles straining tight. Finally, he paused in the shadow of a bowed sycamore at the edge of the familiar rocky, rough sand beach, peering through the foliage to find her.

He stilled. His already roughened skin grew even tighter.

She stood knee-deep in the shallows, water running in streams down graceful arms, high breasts and a smooth, taut belly. As she tossed her head to the side, a spray of water flew from waist-length dark hair like a shower of sparkling diamonds. She fisted the wet mane at her nape and pulled, causing a rivulet of water to cascade along a breast and down her ribs and belly. He watched, enthralled, as her full, dark pink lips moved.

“I may be blind, but you I can see,” she sang.

Her eyes flickered and suddenly she was staring right at him.

He was sure he hadn’t moved and given himself away. One second, she’d been utterly lost in her own private world; the next, she’d sensed him. For an electric few seconds, neither of them moved. He didn’t breathe and was sure she didn’t either.

Asher considered himself a good writer. He despised hyperbole and strived for lean, matter?of?fact prose. But how could you tell a truth like the one he experienced at that moment as he stared in wonder at this naked, glorious woman? It was something felt,
not told. It was like unexpectedly sighting a mythical creature or something. His senses overflowed with the reality of her. His lungs forgot how to work. Even his blood seemed to come to a screeching halt in his veins. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, let alone imagined.

The inland lake had long been his secret, special place. But somehow, she’d just made it sacred.

She suddenly started. Fear leapt into large, almond-shaped green eyes. The spell was shattered. He staggered onto the beach, his hands up.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Don’t be afraid,” he begged. “Please,” he added desperately when he saw her glazed expression of shock and fear. The thought of her being afraid of him made him sick.

“Ash? Where are you?” Rudy called in the distance, his voice muffled by the trees.

Asher’s eyes widened. Hers did too. She lunged toward the beach, her lithe arms covering her bare breasts and dark pubic hair. She pulled back, her desperate gaze jumping from the pile of clothing and what looked like several notebooks on the beach over to him.

He shook his head, a horrible feeling swooping through him when he realized she was looking at him like a wild, trapped animal would at its captor. She was wondering about her chances of escape with him standing so close. He stepped backward quickly away from the shoreline, giving her space. He heard a sound like a branch snapping.

“What the fuck, man? Where’d you go?” Eric yelled, irritation ripe in his tone. He heard the sound of Eric and Rudy tramping on the distant path, their tread much louder than his had been. More aggressive-sounding too, he realized as he took in the girl’s panicked expression.

“I’m going,” he said very quietly. “I’ll lead them away from you. Don’t worry. You’re safe.”

She stared at him mutely, a strange, blank expression of shock on her beautiful face.

“I won’t let them see this place either. It was my secret place too. Once.”

He took one last look at her, absorbing her like a man inhales his last breath before he submerges underwater for a long dive. Then he turned and hurried into the forest, intent on intercepting his friends and preventing their intrusive gazes.

* * *

Behind the Curtain is available now for preorder! For another excerpt from this contemporary, emotional, second-chance romance, click here.

I’m extremely excited for my upcoming contemporary romance, BEHIND THE CURTAIN, out on May 2 and available for preorder now. This is a very special love story that begins when Asher and Laila are young adults and evolves into a second chance romance. Asher and Laila have to find a way to be together, and that journey is fraught with conflict, loss and eventually, happiness. BEHIND THE CURTAIN is a modern day love story that will make you consider issues of loyalty to culture, family, and the deepest feelings of the heart. I wanted to write a story where the hero or heroine didn’t just happen to be of another race or religion, but where it really mattered to their story and romance, where difficult choices had to made, even with the knowledge that loved ones would be affected forever by those choices.

On May 2, prepare to feel deeply and fall in love with this amazing couple . . .

BEHIND THE CURTAIN

The New York Times bestselling author who brought you Looking Inside, Glow, Glimmer, and The Affair is back with a new erotic novel that will have you begging for more.

There’s something about this woman…

On a break between overseas jobs, journalist Asher Gaites returns to his hometown of Chicago—and allows his friends to persuade him to check out a hot new singer. At a downtown jazz club, he’s soon transfixed by the lyrical voice and sensuous body of a woman who performs behind a thin, shimmering veil…

…That could bring a man to his knees.

The veil gives Moroccan-American Laila Barek the anonymity she needs, since she has never been able to reconcile her family’s values with her passion for music. But one man is inexplicably drawn to her. And when Asher confronts her on a subway platform after a gig, he’s shocked to recognize the woman who walked way from him eight years ago…

Laila has never been able to forget the touch, the feel, the taste of Asher. And despite the doubt and fear that wind their way into their lives, they must trust the heat of their desire to burn down the walls the world has placed between them…

Excerpt: Behind the Curtain

Laila shifted awkwardly on her feet. She was pretty used to this scenario: Zara and Tahi always managed to attract a horde of men, but Laila was rarely included in those first few rounds of flirtation. The bold attracted the bold, apparently. A third man lingered on the curb. He was good-looking, with nice, serious, dark brown eyes. Maybe, like Laila, he was the shy one of the group. He smiled and stepped toward her, nodding in greeting.

“Hi. I’m Jim Rothschild,” he said politely.

“I’m Laila,” she replied, shaking his hand. “And these are my cousins, Zara and Tahira.”

“You can call me Tahi,” Tahi told Rudy with a smile.

“Lucky me. Oh, and that’s Eric, but you can just call him Pretty Boy,” Rudy said with a dismissive wave at the tall guy. Eric was too involved in a quiet conversation with Zara to notice. “And this is—”

Rudy turned around in a complete circle and gave Jim a dubious look. “Where’d Asher go?”

Laila glanced in the direction where Jim looked at the same time she licked her ice cream cone. She froze with the ice cream on her tongue. The guy who had seen her naked today strode across the empty street toward them. He looked beachy casual in a pair of khaki shorts and an untucked blue-checked button-down that skimmed his lean, muscular torso appealingly. He moved with the kind of bone-deep, easy, athletic confidence that Laila always noticed and admired, probably because she knew she didn’t possess it herself.

I can’t believe this. He’s walking over here.

She suddenly didn’t know what to do with her arms or legs
. . . or how to breathe. All she could do was stare stupidly. His expression was preoccupied and serious, seemingly in direct contrast to his informal dress and lazy saunter as he approached his friends.

Garnering her will, she forced muscle movement, moving the ice cream cone away from her mouth and rapidly licking her lips clean. It felt like she swallowed gravel instead of cream.

His face wasn’t just handsome, it was strong. The nose was a little large, but well-shaped, the eyebrows dark and thick, the granite jaw slightly square and whiskered. Laila had found it an interesting face even when panicked there on the beach
. . . full of character. So male.Read the rest of this entry »

Every time I’ve written a serial, people ask me: “Will it ever come out in complete format?” The answer is that I don’t know until the publisher announces it. It depends upon how well the serial does. So far, all of my serials have been made into print/complete ebook formats, including Make Me, which is a wonderful thing. The complete versions are extra long and meaty novels, perfect for a cold winter weekend in front of the fire.

Be sure to check out this standalone, romantic steamer, out November 1!

LOOKING INSIDE

The New York Times bestselling author who brought you Glow, Glimmer, and The Affair is back with a new novel that will have you leaving the curtains open.

Are you going to just stand there and watch?

Eleanor Briggs just can’t help herself. The sight of the man in the high-rise across the street is driving her wild. She longs to feel his touch up close and personal. To win him over, she’ll need to shake off her wallflower sensibilities and become the seductress she never imagined she could be. The only trouble will be finding the perfect way to meet him…

Or are you going to join in?

Sex is easy for millionaire entrepreneur Trey Riordan. Finding something of substance, however, seems impossible. What begins as a simple night of reading for self-improvement at a local coffee shop takes a turn for something far steamier when a beautiful brunette comes by and leaves him a note to look out his bedroom window at midnight. But when the time comes, neither of them will be truly ready for what follows…

I’m thrilled to show you the beautiful, sensual cover for BEHIND THE CURTAIN, out next May!

There’s something about this woman…

On a break between overseas jobs, journalist Asher Gaites returns to his
hometown of Chicago—and allows his friends to persuade him to check out a hot
new singer. At a downtown jazz club, he’s soon transfixed by the lyrical voice
and sensuous body of a woman who performs behind a thin, shimmering veil…

…That could bring a man to his knees.

The veil gives Moroccan-American Laila Barek the anonymity she needs, since
she has never been able to reconcile her family’s values with her passion for
music. But one man is inexplicably drawn to her. And when Asher confronts her
on a subway platform after a gig, he’s shocked to recognize the woman who
walked way from him eight years ago…Read the rest of this entry »

Looking Inside is a fun, fresh and very steamy stand alone novel that I have coming out on November 1, 2016. I think you’ll find this a refreshing change of pace!

ExcerptLooking Inside
By Beth Kery

When she lowered her head and opened her eyelids a slit, she saw Trey’s curtain flutter. His shadowed figure stepped around it. With the added ambience of the city lights, she saw that he placed one hand against the glass.

He’d taken a step closer.

It was working.

Her confidence swelled. She spun rapidly, her hands above her head, the knowledge of his observation pulsing in her blood. She blatantly seduced him with her swiveling hips, sliding hair and popping ass, calling him with a siren dance. Her back to him, she strutted several feet over to the edge of the bed. She didn’t need to look to know she had his full attention.

She bent and planted her hands on the mattress and slid onto it belly down, ass elevated in a sensual, sinful glide. The bed portion of the routine was her favorite. It was decadently sexy, but also required some skill. After her initial awkwardness, Eleanor had taken to it like a high-priced call girl. She’d loved practicing it and imagining Trey watching her.

Right here, right now, it was no longer a fantasy. His gaze was glued to her undulating, swiveling ass, and that knowledge was a power unlike anything she’d ever known.

She rolled over onto her back and lifted her stocking-covered legs high in the air. Her skirt had ridden down so that it now barely covered her ass and sex. Legs straight, she opened her thighs.

Wide.

She was nearly doing sideways splits midair. She closed, opened and closed them again. With her legs together and straightened in the air, she bent her knees and rolled her sexy shoes in the air, flirting shamelessly. The movements to the dance were precise, but she made them into a gliding, sensual tease. She knew his gaze was glued to her legs, most especially to what was between them.
She sensed his focused attention on her, felt his stare burning her sex. It was a delicious tease for her as much as it was for him.

Still scissoring and posing her legs in midair, she caressed the back of one thigh. This wasn’t part of the official strip exercise routine, but it certainly felt right. She cupped the bottom of one buttock and slowly circled her hand, causing her skirt to lower and then rise in rhythm to the music, up and down . . . just a fraction of an inch. She was flashing her pussy at him, and it was a potent intoxicant.

She kept the skirt in place, just covering her sex from him. One finger strayed over the edge of her skirt to her pussy. She sunk it into her snug, liquid channel, only letting him see the movement
of her hand, but not her sex itself, as she stimulated herself.

Her moan sounded over the loud music.

For a stretched moment, she lost herself. The idea entered her brain that she should fully expose what she was doing. It was such a strong, precise prod that she couldn’t help but wonder if it was him thinking it at that moment . . . if it was Trey demanding it silently, projecting his command across the distance. But that wasn’t part of her routine.

Not yet it wasn’t, anyway.

She lowered her legs and slid off the bed. She stood facing him, fully exposed. Her heart leapt into overtime as she danced to the music, caressing her body all the while, falling victim to her own seduction. He’d stepped even closer to the window. She could make out his form better. He wore nothing but a pair of jeans, leaving the magnificent landscape of his lean, cut torso exposed.

The jeans rode low on his narrow hips. God, what it would be like to touch all that hard male flesh?

Heaven.

She sensed the coiled tension in his muscles. She saw the rigidness of his rugged, handsome face. Like he had for a moment there in the coffee shop, he looked positively fierce. Both of his hands pressed against the windowpane now, only adding to the impression of a caged animal poised to spring. And Jesus . . . she didn’t think it was her imagination. Things looked very full behind the fly of his jeans.

Still pulsing her hips to the driving beat, she cupped one sensitive breast through the suede bodice. With her other hand, she drew on the lace. His elbows bent slightly, making him lean in closer to the window, arm muscles bulging. His attention on her was absolute and cuttingly sharp. It stole her breath.

She worked a finger beneath the lace and drew it out of the first holes on the camisole. She proceeded downward teasingly, drawing out the laces while she danced. As she undressed, she shaped her breast to her palm, plumping the flesh into the widening opening. When she was entirely unlaced, she cupped both of her breasts, squeezing them into the inch-wide opening while keeping the fabric over her nipples.

She saw his teeth flash as his mouth curled into a snarl. She’d been intimidated by his fierceness in the coffee shop. Now she understood him better.